Christian high school moving to Gardena campus of closing Christian elementary school

There is bad news and good news for proponents of Protestant education in the South Bay, with a 63-year-old K-8 Christian school on the brink of closure and a 17-year-old Christian high school on the brink of expansion.

All of the activity is happening on the church premises of CrossRoad Ministries in Gardena, where, come next fall, CrossRoad Christian Academy - which opened in 1950 - will be no more. In its place will be Pacific Lutheran High School, which, by moving from its current digs in Torrance to the new campus at 2818 Manhattan Beach Blvd. in Gardena, will be doubling its capacity and adding amenities such as a gymnasium and proximity to El Camino College.

"We've been praying for a new site for years," said Lucas Fitzgerald, principal of Pacific Lutheran High. "This is an answer to our prayers."

Pacific Lutheran is currently the only non-Catholic Christian high school in the South Bay, but another school - Ambassador High - is trying hard to become the second. Ambassador secured a lease to operate out of the LA Galaxy Soccer Center in Torrance in August of 2012, and will open its doors this coming August, according to the principal, Michael Barker.

By trying to expand - and indeed by even trying to come into existence - Pacific Lutheran and Ambassador High are bucking a statewide trend. Largely because there are fewer children in California, private school enrollment in the state has been on a steady decline, dropping from 611,000 to 500,000 in a decade, according to the California Department of Education. Although the population in public schools has dropped as well, the decline in the private sector has been more pronounced. In 2002-03, private school students made up 9 percent of all K-12 students in California; that percentage has since dropped to 8 percent. (Five years before, it was 10 percent.)

For American Baptist denomination schools like CrossRoad, the plunge has been especially severe.

The Rev. Scott Fairchild, pastor of CrossRoad Ministries, said the number of such schools in Los Angeles County has fallen from 48 in the 1970s to one: CrossRoad.

"We're the last ones standing, and we'll be ending," he said.

CrossRoad, whose most notable alum is the actor Chuck Norris, has struggled from years of steady enrollment decline, dropping from a peak of 540 students about a decade ago to fewer than 100 today, Fairchild said.

Like many non-Catholic Christian schools, CrossRoad taught intelligent design alongside Darwin's theory of evolution, Fairchild said. The school has had a good academic run, with many of its alums going on to attend colleges such as Stanford, UCLA, USC and the University of California, Berkeley.

Meanwhile, for Pacific Lutheran High, the deal marks the end of a lengthy search for a new home. For 15 years, the school has made do in a cramped campus on the grounds of the South Bay Christian Community Church on Sepulveda Boulevard near Arlington Avenue.

Though it currently serves only 75 students - and though the school for years has existed without a gymnasium - it supports eight athletic teams. One of them, girls volleyball, secured a CIF championship for their division in 2009.

The school's new digs will increase its student capacity from the current 90 to 200. In early 2011, the school made an attempt to purchase a site on Knob Hill Avenue in Redondo Beach owned by that city's school district. But the Redondo Beach school board instead opted to lease that property to the upstart Ambassador High. That deal fell through, however, and the site ultimately went to the developer of a senior assisted-living facility.

Despite its facility upgrade, Pacific Lutheran High - where annual tuition costs $6,500 - has also witnessed a slight drop in enrollment, by maybe 10 students in five years. But Fitzgerald is confident that the needle will soon be moving in the better direction.

"A lot of (private) schools are closing now, unfortunately," he said. "We're kind of flying in the face of that."

Fitzgerald added that he will be giving tours of the new facility every Saturday, starting April 6.